Monthly Archives: April 2012

MsMyrtle, a student of mine, relocated to the the southern Hemisphere from Toronto a couple of years ago. She’s been doing a lot of travelling in her exciting new life, splitting her time between Western Australia and New Zealand, and to help pass the time, she launched a project: The Knitty Sock Project.

Did you know that there is a Ravelry group dedicated to the Knitty socks? Â It’s a great place to go to see pictures of fab finished Knitty socks, to ask questions, and chat about the over 100 sock patternsÂ (!) published on Knitty throughout the years…

MsMyrtle started her sock knitting career with my Socks 101 class, which is basically an in-person version of my Socks 101 article from way back when, so that counts as a pair of Knitty socks, too, I think.

Yarn Bomb Yukon, a group in the far north of Canada, famed for their transportation-themed yarnbombs, has announced plans for their most ambitious effort yet: knitting a cozy for a DC-3 plane! Â When complete, it’s likely to be the largest yarnbomb ever created in Canada. Â The plane is on display outside the Yukon Transportation Museum. It’s an important piece of the history of Canada and the Yukon, as such aircraft were critical in settling and supplying the remote northernmost regions of the country.

The project is being supported by the Yukon Transportation Museum and the Yukon Arts Centre, andÂ Â conservators, an aircraft engineer and an architect have been engaged to ensure that the care and safety of the plane is a top priority for the project. Yarn Bomb Yukon is looking for volunteers willing to contribute supplies or pieces to contribute to the cozy.

Crafters in the Ottawa area: this coming weekend the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario is hosting an intensive 2-day felting workshop. Internationally known, UK-based felt maker and artist Sue Pearl is hosting and will share her felt-making techniques and innovations.

An obituary for Maurice Newble, a businessman in the North East of England who ran a chain of 19 haberdashery shops. The shops were successful enough to have their own line of yarn – they were buying the wool and having it processed and labelled with their own name.

It’s a fascinating peek into another time and another way of life, in post-war Britain, when knitting wasn’t just a hobby but the way to clothe your family.

For many years the selvedges from the looms of Harris Tweed weavers were just cut off and dumped, but these strips of fabric are now being saved and knitted on giant needles to create rugs, bags and dog beds.

Who do you spend your spinning time with? Outside of classes or events?

I have a tight group of spinners, 6 or 7 women, we manage to get together every 6 weeks or so in various combinations. We just hang out and spin and tell life tales.

I alwaysÂ wanted to belong to a spinning guild. I love the idea of a guild. To me a guild is a larger group of spinners who teach each other and support each other to become better spinners.

I’ve been a member of a local guild for several years. It’s a pretty big guild, probably 200 active members. This guild has 4 big sales a year and that has become more and more of a focus every meeting. I’m not really interested in selling, I’m interested in spinning.Â Instead of being frustrated at every meeting.Â I didn’t renew my membership this year.

I even went as far as to ask a local spinning shop if she could have monthly spin-ins that would include talking about spinning and some fun spinning challenges. Spin a yarn based on a favorite book or movie character, anyone?

Who do you spin with?

My spinning goals are going slooowly but they are getting checked off.

A fascinating piece about knitter and artistÂ Saki Chikaraishi, who describes herself as ‘hyper-knit creator’. Â See more of her work at her website. Â Her ambition is to “wrap the whole world up in knitting”, and is clearly a compulsive knitter in a way we understand. She says “as long as I have my fingers and any stringlike object, I can knit anything”.

Fundraisers in Coventry attempted to break the record for most knitters in public, previously set a group at the first Sock Summit.Â Hundreds of people packed into Coventry Cathedral for the second annual Coventry and Warwickshire Knit-A-Thon.

Do you think Jon Stewart wears hand-knit socks? A profile of Beth Shorr, talent coordinator for The Daily Show and knitter.

Knitters in and around Torquay, Victoria, Australia, are participating in the fourth annual Torquay Beanie Festival. This month-long festival encourages knitters to make items to donate to the needy, and local businesses are getting involved by hosting displays of all sorts of knitted headgear. There will also be outdoor displays, and a display at Torquay Uniting Church where the beanie festival began.

In 1972, Newfoundland knitter and designer Anna Templeton published a book of knitting patterns called â€œOperation Homespun.â€ The goal was to inspire and enlighten knitters across Canada with written patterns for traditional maritime items like trigger mitts and gansey-style sweaters.

New Jersey area residents: clear your calendar for the weekend of April 20-22. The Garden State Yarn Crawl (formerly known as the Northern NJ Yarn Crawl), is a free three-day event that encourages local support and investigation of the areaâ€™s popular yarn and craft emporia. In this second year of the crawl, 15 independent yarn retailers in towns in Northern NJ, from Westfield to Wyckoff â€“ and many points in between – will participate.

The stores will be offering visitors special events, discounts and promotions along with a chance to win one of 15 incredible raffle baskets filled with yarn and other goodies. More info here.

All the cool kids will be there.

Toronto-area knitters will be gathering the weekend of April 27 & 28th for the 14th annual Downtown Knit Collective’s Annual Knitter’s Frolic. Our own Franklin is the keynote instructor. Even without Franklin, this is one of the highlights of the Toronto knitters’ calendar – add Franklin, and it promises to be the event of the year!

To be frank, she has a naughty squeaking problem. When I treadle her she sounds likeÂ honeymooners going at it on an antique iron bed. Funny at first, but it quickly gets annoying.

I love this wheel. I love to make singles and ply on her. She fantastic for big air or textured yarn. She’s heavy and sexy and spins forever. She got so noisy I almost quit using her altogether.

For a while, I thought she just needed oil or that it had something to do with how the treadles were attached in the back.

I thought it was the green bits

See the green bits? I call them rubber baby treadle bumpers. I thought they were the cause of the squeak and dusted them with cornstarch. Still squeaking, and probably laughing at me.

I took Suzie-Q to First Saturday Spinning at The Spinning Loft. She started doing her thing, everybody laughed, except Nora. She has a Majacraft Rose.Â She said, “I know what’s wrong and how to fix it. One or more of the treadle screw holes is stripped”.

She was right. I never would have guessed it.

She fixed hers using wood filler to make the screw holes tighter. I used toothpicks and glue. I didn’t want to use bigger screws because I was afraid of splitting the wood.

I figured out that the squeak was coming somewhere in the left front.

The front bottom hinges

I unscrewed and rescrewed the screws to determine which hole was stripped.

Unscrewed

The center screw in the right set of hinges wouldn’t tighten completely, bingo. To be thorough, I decided to tighten up all three holes in the set.

I used a wooden toothpick in each screw hole to give the screw something to bite into.

toothpick as filler

I coated each toothpick with Gorilla Glue and tapped it into the screw hole as far as it would go.

Gorilla Glue to set it

I let it dry, broke off the toothpick and lightly sanded the holes level. IÂ cleaned and oiled the hinge and screwed it back into place, tightly.

I sat right down and spun. No squeak.

I have my Suzie-Q back in regular spinning rotation and she’s as sexy and swampy as the song she’s named for.

The City of Toronto Public Library Workers were on strike for 10 days or so as their contract ended and negotiations were underway to establish a new contract.

The striking workers were marching in Nathan Philips Square, a big open public space in front of Toronto City Hall. Some of the participants are knitters and spinners, and the decided to organize a Knit-In.

Showing our support

An estimated 100 knitters and spinners were there, some from the contingent of Library Workers,

Written in Franklin’s inimitable and hysterical style (although be warned, the language is a little bit salty), it’s a fascinating insight into what passed for a set of decent pattern instructions way back when. And the work that Franklin goes through every issue to turn these wonderful antique patterns into a set of instructions we can actually understand.